Stan the man and the oil chugging panda

Meet Stan.
Meet Stan's brother, Stan.
And his other brother Stan and....you get the idea.
There five in all; Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan. Their more famous cousins, Afghanistan and Pakistan will not be discussed here. Of the five brothers, three share borders with the western most edge of China and since the new millennium, some of the brothers have been actively engaged in delivery of natural gas and oil to China and strengthening ties with Russia.

Meet the oil guzzling panda. China is the largest consumer of oil after the US, and the world's biggest producer and consumer of coal. China gets its oil supply from as far away as the Sudan and also from Iran.
It now has the world's fastest-growing economy and is undergoing what has been described as a second industrial revolution. China is hungry for energy to keep its economy growing and the five brothers, along with Russia are keen to exploit potential transit routes for their resources through Central Asia.

Kazakhstan is ahead of the game. With a land mass twice that of Texas and large oil reserves, Kazakhstan has the potential for becoming one of central Asia's richest countries. In an agreement to sell its oil to China, Kazakhstan has built a 600 mile long pipeline from its Caspian sea oil wells to its border with China. It is the first major export pipeline from the landlocked Central Asian republic which does not cross Russia.

Not to be outdone, southern brother Turkmenistan will sign a major agreement this year to
sell natural gas to China and jointly develop Turkmen gas fields. A gas pipeline from eastern Turkmenistan to China is to be built to facilitate the transfer of natural gas. Turkmenistan has large reserves of natural gas and currently sells to its immediate neighbor, Iran, in addition to Russia and Ukraine.

Caught between these two brothers is Uzbekistan. It has very little to offer in the way of natural resources for export and its only recent claim to fame is expelling the U.S. from its air base there. Uzbekistan has also asked European troops within NATO to leave its territory. Uzbekistan recently signed a mutual defense pact with Russia.

The two smallest brothers, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan are no more than pawns butted up against China's western border.
Kyrgyzstan does not benefit from the wealth of natural resources possessed by some of its neighbors. It walks a strange tight rope between east and west with U.S. forces stationed at the city of Bishkek's Manas airport and Russian rapid reaction forces deployed at the Kant airbase. The Russian forces are stationed just 30 km from their U.S. counterparts.

Tajikistan is the most battered of the five. Resource poor, impoverished and struggling with the aftermath of a civil war that ended in 1997, Tajikistan is often the haven of drug smugglers from Afghanistan and Islamic radicals seeking to set up camp in the rugged, barren country. In October 2004 Russia formally opened a military base in the city of Dushanbe. Russia also took back control of a former Soviet space monitoring center at Nurek. These developments were widely seen as a sign of Russia's wish to counter increased US influence in Central Asia.

So what's it all mean?
At stake in these geopolitical power struggles are control and access to vast natural resources bought through tenuous alliances. I predict the U.S. will be frozen out of this new 'great game' by the colossal influence of Russian economic power and China's humongous appetite for energy.

Meet the
Shanghai Cooperation Organization.

Happy reading and stay warm.
Oh.
And don't forget to thank your natural gas supplier.

Drill ANWAR!
(yeah, baby)